DEAR EDITOR -- The article in the Advertiser concerning the completely ineffective police response to an incident in Victoria Avenue is typical of the response I have had when reporting incidents in the last three months.

I have had reason to report a couple of incidents concerning trouble caused by youths, and by people being provided with charitable support within the Droitwich community but subsequently abusing it with anti-social and criminal behaviour.

To be quite honest, I felt as though I was interrupting their busy schedule of "managing beats" and "dealing with serious crime elsewhere" -- and that it was extremely selfish of me to report incidents that did not fit these categories as this would mean they would have to get up and do some old-fashioned policing.

The irony of the fact that these incidents happened within 100 yards of the police station seemed to escape the people I spoke to. I was met with the knee-jerk reflex response of "we don't have the resources".

If they don't have the resources to turn out of the police station and walk 100 yards at times of potential trouble then we may as well close it, reduce our tax and each community can use the money saved to employ private security.

Alternatively, we could sack the people responsible for mismanaging the resources available to them.

Unfortunately, the police have fallen into the trap that so many other occupations appear to have fallen into, namely that of spending so much time feeling sorry for themselves that they appear to be incapable of carrying out the basic duties for which they are being paid -- with taxpayers money.

In short, the police in Droitwich should be told in no uncertain terms to police Droitwich properly. No excuses please.

(Name and address supplied).